Mentorship In The Hundred Foot Journey

Richard C. Morais comments on the effect of mentors in his novel The Hundred Foot Journey. The mentorship of Madame Mallory, Paul Verdun, and his father, Abbas, push Hassan on his journey and enable him to be the first immigrant chef to receive three Michilen stars. By definition, a mentor is “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher; an influential senior sponsor or supporter” (Dictionary.com). In some way or another, Abbas, Madame Mallory, and Paul Verdun all meet this definition. Morais primarily uses Hassan’s mentors to show the effect that mentors have on their mentees.

Morais displays the mentorship of a parent and its effects through the relationship of Hassan and his father, Abbas. Abbas pushes Hassan to start cooking and enables

She plays a crucial role in his later success. Madame Mallory instills in Hassan a wish to learn French cuisine, as seen in Hassan’s statement that he “found [himself] secretly and passionately wanting to be a part of this pig-butchering underworld” (84). When given the opportunity to learn from her, Hassan says that he “wants nothing more in this world” (132). Morais directly relates her teaching to Abbas’ wish for Hassan to be more successful than he and his father in Madame Mallory’s declaration that “this is a chance for [Hassan] to become a truly great French chef, a man of taste, a proper artist, not just some curry cook working in an Indian bistro” (126). She implies that she wants more for Hassan and for the first time vocalizes her confidence that “Lumiere and Le Saule Pleureur, they can’t hold him. . . He has much farther to travel. He will not be with us long” (155). Madame Mallory also states that she “has taught [Hassan] what [she] can,” and thus fulfills the teaching role of a mentor (155). Even after leaving Le Saule Pleureur, Hassan “always wonders whether she did not help [him]-- a discreet call here and there—to help things along at key moments” and to support him (163). Through Madame Mallory, he meets Le Comte de Nancy Seliere, and when he became Hassan’s generous landlord, he “knew in that instant the arrival of Le Comte de Nancy Seliere and his property, it was somehow the work of Madame Mallory’s invisible hand” (171). Although he “had no proof, indeed never got it,” Hassan never doubts Madame Mallory’s crucial role in his success (171). In providing these introductions, Madame Mallory mentors Hassan not only as teacher but also as a